“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
This summer brought no stranger of a story than the unbelievable events that followed the death of baseball great Ted Williams.
Williams, who died July 5 at the age of 83, was arguably the greatest hitter who ever played the game. His eyesight for the baseball was keen. In fact, he once explained could see the stitches on the baseball as it was approaching the plate.
What Williams apparently couldn’t see very well was how to be with your loved ones after your dead and gone. At least that’s the way it seems. Apparently Williams instructed two of his children to preserve his remains in a cryonics lab, a place where the dead are frozen in hopes that they can be resurrected one day.
The request was memorialized in November of 2000 in the form of note signed in a Gainesville, Florida hospital room four days before the Hall of Fame slugger had a pacemaker installed. “JHW, Claudia and Dad all agree to be put into bio-stasis after we die,” reads the pact. This is what we want, to be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance.”
Who’s to say whether Williams was saved or not? I’ll leave that up to God. What is obvious, however, is that neither Williams nor his family understood the scriptural principles that rule over life and death.
First of all, the Bible is clear that there will be no second chances at life. “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27) In other words, while cryonics may preserve your body indefinitely, there is no chance that you will ever take another breath when you come out of the tank. It’s just not going to happen, period.
Ironically, the cryonics lab in Arizona that took Williams money doesn’t guarantee the preservation process works and admits that the technology to revive a person doesn’t exist. I disagree. The technology does exist, but you’re not going to find it in cryonics. But you can find it in the Bible in the form of salvation. Isn’t that the promise revealed in John 3:16? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Ted Williams believed that cryonics offered his only chance for resurrection. In truth, resurrection is possible, but only through faith in Christ. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39)
Ted Williams understood that a resurrected life is a life that has conquered death, a life that entered into death, remained in death for a period of time, and then came out of death. What he failed to understand was that the only way to experience a resurrected life was through faith in Jesus.
So you see, Ted Williams’ family didn’t have to spend all that money. His grave will crack open one day, even if he’s frozen in a tank. I just hope he gets what he wants because Jesus said this about resurrection: “For the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” (John 5:28-29)
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